The Ends of the World by Maggie hall is the third Conspiracy of Us novel. Read an exclusive excerpt from the final installment right here.
About ‘The Ends of the World’
Power balances on a knife’s edge. Destiny is uncertain. And love is the most terrifying thing of all.
The Circle of Twelve is not who Avery though they were. Neither is Avery.
Her mother is dead. Betrayal and attraction and history have tangled the strings that bind her, Jack, and Stellan. And now, Avery and her friends must put aside their own problems and focus on putting a stop to the most dangerous conspiracy of all…
From London to Russia to Egypt, from the chill of underground crypts to the flash of paparazzi cameras, Avery West will finally have to confront whether her fate means salvation — or destruction.
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‘Ends of the World’ exclusive excerpt
A note from the author
Thanks so much for having me to debut this excerpt from The Ends of the World, the third book in the Conspiracy of Us series. (Warning: spoilers ahead for books 1 and 2!) Earlier in the series, Avery West discovered that her long lost family is part of a powerful, ancient secret society called the Circle of Twelve, and that she and her loved ones are in danger as the Circle means to use her as a pawn. After a hunt around the world, Avery finally unearths the truth behind why she’s so important to them — only to have her worst fear come true. Her mother, who the Circle took hostage, is killed.
Now, in this final book of the trilogy, Avery is determined to avenge her mother and stop the Circle from the inside before more innocent lives are lost, but there are forces working against her. As we meet up with Avery and her friends, an incident has occurred that’s made it necessary for them to get away from the Circle, off the grid, and out of the country. The problem? The crew has been in Israel, a country whose borders are not easy to cross even under normal circumstances. They have a plan, but are starting to worry whether it’ll work — and what will happen if they’re caught.
Hope you enjoy this sneak peek — and to find out what happens next, look for The Ends of the World on July 18.
From Chapter 8
The bus was musty and tinged with the smell of someone’s tuna sandwich. We were winding through terrain that had us on switchbacks, the bus shifting into lower gears, jolting over rough pavement.
I crossed my arms over my chest and tried to get my head in a position that wasn’t killing my neck, and closed my eyes.
I hoped this worked.
Getting caught at the border would be as good as admitting guilt, as far as the Circle was concerned. Maybe we should have appealed to someone after all. Begged the Circle to believe us.
In those too-short days between when I’d gotten my mother back and when I lost her forever, we’d argued. It was almost all we’d done.
We should leave, she’d said. Go somewhere safe.
Safe no longer existed, I’d countered. Not now that the Circle knew what I was. So we didn’t run. We stayed. I was too confident in the goodness of human beings.
This time, we’d made the opposite choice. If I was wrong again, it could mean all our heads.
My eyes flew open.
Through the gap in the seats, I could see Stellan in the next row up, his head against the streaky window, snacking on a bag of chips from a bus station vending machine. Some weird flavor of Cheetos. All the words on the bag were in Hebrew. He’d used Jack’s phone to call Anya’s nanny twice more, and had finally reached her. I knew he’d told her to go to the safe house and stay there. I wondered if I was the only one who’d noticed his foot was still bouncing nervously anyway.
Jack was beside me, his arms crossed over his chest, eyes closed. I couldn’t tell whether he was actually asleep. Across the aisle, Elodie was on her phone, working on the program to get us across the border.
If we got caught, Stellan and I would probably get a trial, as Circle family members. Jack and Elodie—
My chest got tighter. I closed my eyes again.
This time, I actually did drift off, because suddenly, I woke with a start. I couldn’t breathe. I sucked in gasp after gasped breath. I was drowning. I was—
I was on a bus. It was dark and bumpy and dry. I could breathe fine. It didn’t make the tightness in my chest subside. It didn’t make the images in my head—the blood, the screams, the Circle with guns to our heads—go away. Jack opened one eye and looked at me, and I hugged my arms around myself and shivered. Outside, the bus’s headlights illuminated a warning sign. I squinted. It had Hebrew, Arabic, and at the bottom, English: Beware of camels near the road.
The bus came to a sudden stop. Jack sat up straight and peered over the seats. Ahead of us, Stellan did, too. Two soldiers with guns and sniffing dogs got on. My whole body went cold.
Jack put a stiff arm around me. “They’re not looking for us,” he murmured into my ear. “They’re checking for bombs, but we don’t want them to see your face anyway. Pretend to be asleep.”
I leaned my head on his chest, letting Elodie’s blond wig hide my face, and he pulled his cap lower and leaned on my head.
The soldiers went past us to the back of the bus, then through to the front again. I opened one eye. They hadn’t so much as looked at us. I relaxed, and felt Jack’s arm tighten around my shoulders with the same relief. For just a second, I accidentally leaned into it.
“You okay?” he murmured. It was not a Keeper asking his charge whether she was safe.
I nodded.
“I don’t mean just that little scare. You’ve been—”
I sat up. “I’m fine.”
“Are you—”
“I said fine.”
Across the aisle, Elodie peered after the soldiers. Stellan glanced back at us, and I saw his eyes flick to Jack’s arm still resting around my shoulders.
The second the soldiers stepped off the bus, I scooted away from Jack, and he folded his hands in his lap.
The bus started back up and rattled on. My chest didn’t feel any less tight.
“If you’re not fine, it’s understandable,” Jack said quietly. “You’re allowed to be sad. You don’t have to pretend you feel nothing. I know you don’t want to talk to me about it, but keep it in mind.”
I wasn’t pretending. I was doing it on purpose, and this was exactly why. In the past couple of days a few emotions had snuck in, and now they were all rushing back at once. That was probably why kissing Stellan at the party had triggered those flashbacks, too, and all of it together meant I was having a really hard time functioning as well as I should. Hence turning it off.
It wasn’t cold at all in here—in fact, it was muggy and stuffy—but I couldn’t stop shivering.
About the author
Maggie Hall indulges her obsession with distant lands and far-flung adventures as often as she can. She has played with baby tigers in Thailand, learned to make homemade pasta in Italy, and taken thousands of miles of trains through the vibrant countryside of India. In her past life, she was a bookstore events coordinator and marketing manager, and when she’s not on the other side of the world, she lives with her husband and their cats in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she watches USC football, dabbles in graphic design, and blogs about young adult literature for YA Misfits.